On a recent Wednesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in Washington committed to preventing Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) systems from infiltrating federal agencies, emphasizing the need for the United States to secure its position in the global AI competition against China. Rep. John Moolenaar, the Republican chair of the House Select Committee on China, highlighted the strategic importance of AI, stating, "We are in a new Cold War, and AI is the strategic technology at the center." He warned that the outcome of this rivalry could dictate the future balance of power.
This congressional hearing followed the unveiling of a Chinese AI model by the tech startup DeekSeek, which demonstrated performance levels comparable to those of leading platforms like OpenAI and Google while being significantly cheaper to develop. This development raised alarms among U.S. lawmakers, indicating that despite restrictions on essential technology such as chips, China's AI capabilities were advancing rapidly.
The U.S.-China technological competition has become a pivotal issue, with witnesses at the hearing stressing the critical need for the U.S. to emerge victorious. Thomas Mahnken, president and CEO of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, indicated that this ongoing "techno-security competition" would shape the global political landscape for years to come.
Jack Clark, co-founder and head of policy at Anthropic, pointed out the intrinsic values embedded in AI technologies. He asserted, "AI built in democracies will lead to better technology for all of humanity," contrasting it with AI developed in authoritarian contexts, which he claimed would be "inescapably intertwined and imbued with authoritarianism." Clark urged lawmakers to take decisive action to ensure American success in this arena.
Earlier this year, Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s head of global affairs, articulated similar sentiments, declaring that the U.S. and China were the only two nations capable of developing AI at scale. He characterized the competition as one between "democratic AI" and "autocratic AI," underscoring its seriousness and the immense stakes involved, as the future framework of AI might be dictated by one of these two nations.
The 2025 AI Index Report from Stanford University's Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence center affirms that while the U.S. currently leads in the production of top AI models, China is closing in on performance levels, achieving near parity in 2024 across several key benchmarks. Furthermore, the report indicates that China is surpassing the U.S. in AI publications and patents, highlighting the escalating rivalry between the two nations.
During the hearing, Clark advocated for stricter export controls on advanced chips destined for China, emphasizing that "this competition fundamentally runs on compute." He insisted that the U.S. must regulate the flow of powerful chips to China to prevent the adversary from acquiring the capabilities needed to develop AI technologies that could harm American interests. Mark Beall, Jr., president of government affairs at The AI Policy Network, echoed these concerns, pointing out existing gaps in U.S. export controls allowing China to obtain restricted chips. Earlier legislative efforts introduced a bill aimed at tracking these chips to prevent their misuse.
In a significant development, lawmakers from both parties introduced a bill titled the No Adversarial AI Act, which seeks to ban Chinese AI systems from being utilized within the federal government. Moolenaar asserted, "The U.S. must draw a hard line: hostile AI systems have no business operating inside our government." The proposed legislation aims to identify AI systems developed by foreign adversaries and prohibit their usage, with specific exemptions for research and counter-terrorism efforts.
